Clinical trials in pets pose both challenges and opportunities

Posted on August 18, 2016

From FierceAnimalHealth:

Late last year, Connecticut-based Kolltan Pharmaceuticals ran a clinical trial in pet dogs that showed its drug, KTN0158, substantially shrank mast cell tumors, a common form of canine skin cancer. The company went on to start human trials of the drug, which targets KIT, a gene that drives several types of cancer.

“The dog trial had a dramatic impact on our strategy to develop this product for people,” Jerry McMahon, the company’s president, told Science magazine. And Kolltan’s human trials were launched just a few months after 200 veterinarians, physicians, pharmaceutical companies and regulators met in Washington, D.C., to have a workshop on how clinical trials in pets can contribute to human health–a meeting that spawned new collaborations aimed at making pet clinical trials part of mainstream drug development, Science reports.